Smothered

When rich girl Eloise (Lou) Hansen moves back home after college, she becomes the project of her overprotective mother, Shelley, appropriately nicknamed Mama Shell. While Lou's peers vacation in Europe, start successful blogs, or head to graduate school, Lou, once a top student, flounders, unemployed. She sleeps in too much and can't find clean underwear. Meanwhile, her helicopter parent has turned into a bush pilot; Shell obsesses about Lou losing weight and insists it's "relaxing" to locate her daughter 24/7 on her Find My Friends app. Her compulsive shopping and partying compound the problem: Mama Shell's midlife crisis mirrors Lou's desperation to move on from—and out of—her childhood home. In her debut, the author, also an actress, tries for humor in spilling the facts on the good life among the rich and famous in Southern California. Two examples: Mama Shell files a missing person report for her dog Muffin, insisting he's "my baby." Also, Lou jokes about murdering a cloying friend because in prison, "at least I'll have a set schedule with three carbo-loaded meals."